A Blog About Women Who Were Homefront Heroines: the WAVES of World War II
WAVE Bertha May Rasmussen rewinds a film used to project a target on the screen. The film is used during gunner training. Rasmussen taught men how to track and bring down the on-screen target – skills which would later be used in the field.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
WAVE Jean Selby, who was an illustrator at the Walt Disney Studio, now makes celluloid for training films at the Navy’s Photographic Lab, Anacostia, Washington, DC.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Check out the left-hand side of this photograph. Those are animated figures, included in training films to, in the words of the Navy, “add interest.” Here, Jane Orbison inserts the figures into the films at the Photo Science Lab in Anacostia, Washington, DC.
The photo comes from the National Archives.
At the photographic lab, Naval Air Station Norfolk, motion picture titles are made in this room where a WAVES artist prepares backgrounds and lettering for shooting by the cameramen at the left.
This week we’re featuring only color World War II-era photos.
This photo comes from the National Archives.
Here Come the WAVES debuted Christmas week, 1944. “Accentuate the Positive” was the musical number that was the biggest hit from the film. It was nominated for an Academy Award as best original song in 1945.
Betty Hutton as WAVE Rosemary Allison (she also played Rosemary’s twin sister Susie) in the film Here Come the WAVES. The film debuted during Christmas week 1944 and was shot on location at the Naval Air Station in San Diego. Rosemary was an air traffic controller in the film.
Here Come the WAVES previewed at the WAVES boot camp training facility at Hunter College and at the Naval Air Station in San Diego before the film’s premiere in New York City. The reason? The film was shot on location at the two facilities (as seen in the film still above) with WAVES acting as extras.
Publicity poster for the Hollywood feature film Here Comes the WAVES, which premiered Christmas week, 1944.
It was Christmas week, 1944, that the feature film Here Come the WAVES (film still above) premiered in New York, but WAVES got a sneak peek before the premiere.
The film features Betty Hutton, playing twin sisters who join the WAVES, and Bing Crosby, as the celebrity who joins the Navy in order to help the war effort.
The 1945 romance features Barbara Stanwyck as a single-gal New York-dwelling food journalist Elizabeth Lane (think Martha Stewart if Martha Stewart couldn’t cook) and Dennis Morgan as Jefferson Jones, the hero sailor she’ll host for the holidays on “her” Connecticut farm.
Arrange it, are you crazy? Where am I gonna get a farm? I haven’t even got a window box!
Elizabeth Lane learning she’ll be hosting a sailor at “her” farm for Christmas.
Hinges of History 